Treadmill Workout For Beginners

The rain is coming down in buckets and the wind is whipping trees back and forth like a metronome. Not exactly a day you want to go outside for a run. However, you still want to lose weight, and you want to burn some calories. So, you head off to your spare room and decide to dust off your treadmill.

You remember when you bought this thing. You planned on using it all the time, and you did at first. But then it got boring. You felft like a gerbil inside one of those plastic balls that keeps bumping into furniture and walls. So now, your treadmill is nothing but a hanger for dirty laundry.

Working out on a treadmill doesn't have to be boring. By adding a little variety, your treadmill routine can be a lot more interesting and a lot more challenging...And, you'll get the added benefit of a much better fat busting workout.

A treadmill program that keeps you interested...and strips away weight

Let's face it, if you don't do the workout, you won't get results...But it's hard to just plod away on a treadmill for any length of time.

Some people take to watching TV. Others even try to read...That detachment from your workout will only cause you to waste time and lose very little weight.To get the most from your time on the treadmill, it will be best to focus on your workout and make it interesting...To do this, you'll have to make the workout challenging.

Challenge yourself to beat yourself. Try to beat your best time, try to beat your best distance, or try to beat your pace. Whatever you do, establish some benchmarks for yourself and try to beat them.

In fact, it might be helpful to write down your workout each time. Document the duration, the speed, and the pace. That way, the next time you hop on the treadmill, you can glance back at your workouts and say to yourself, "I am going to beat that workout this time." This is a lot better than going through the motions watching TV.

A fat melting workout

Believe it or not, challenging yourself in this manner will also produce a better workout and shed more weight. A more challenging workout, like this one, will get your heart rate up, and burn more calories through the duration of exercise.

The key to succesfulling shedding weight, and keeping your interest, is to vary the intensity of your efforts. Your body will adapt to treadmill workout  that's done at a constant pace. It will learn to become more efficient...The more efficient the body becomes, the easier the run becomes.

Eventually, your body burns less calories doing the same thing. This is the exact opposite of what we want. Not to mention, it would bore most of us to tears.

Instead, this program will keep your body guessing, and maximize your calorie burn. And, it will be anything but boring.

Beginner treadmill workout: Getting Started

Before we get started, you will notice that I refer to running in my description of this program. However, you don't necessarily need to run. If walking challenges you enough, then walk. Or, you may opt for a combination of walking and running. When your conditioning has reached a higher level, you may wish to run for the duration of the treadmill workout.

Also, I refer to heart rates, and specifically, the percentage of your maximum heart rate. A heart rate monitor will allow you to objectively see how hard you're working. You can't pretend you're having a great workout when your heart rate monitor tells you otherwise.

While it's best to have a heart rate monitor, you can get by without one. You can  estimate how hard you're working instead. However, if you chose to go this route, you're going to have to be honest with yourself.

To get an idea how estimating your effort is done, here's an example. If I indicate a run at 80% of your maximum heart rate, that's a hard run...think of that as being an 8 out of 10, with ten being your hardest all out sprint. Now, when you see 80% written in the program run hard, but not so hard that you're sprinting.

For those of you using a heart rate monitor, estimate your heart max heart rate at 220 - your age. A 40 year old person, would compute their max heart rate at 220 - 40, which is 180 beats per minute. I suggest you write this number down. After reading this article, go back and figure out exactly what heart rate you should target for each segment of the workout.

The other variable that we will manipulate in this workout, is the incline of the treadmill. This will stress the muscles a little differently and a higher incline will make you work a little harder.

By manipulating your pace and the incline, you will have a great deal of variety throughout this workout.

• 5 minute warm up - easy intensity level at 50% of your max heart rate. Tread mill is at 0 incline. You should not be struggling through this portion.
• 2 minutes: Increase the grade 2 degrees. Do not increase the speed. Your perceived exertion should go up a bit.
• 2 minutes: Increase the speed so that your heart rate is between 65-70%.
• 2 minutes: Decrease speed to a moderate pace so that your heart rate is at 60%. Also decrease the incline back to 0 degrees.
• 2 minutes: Increase the incline to 3 degrees. Also, increase your speed. Get your heart rate up to 70-75%.
• 2 munites: Decrease speed, and decrease the incline back to 0 degrees. Your heart rate should fall back to 60%.
• 2 minutes: Increase the grade 2 degrees. Do not increase the speed. Watch your heart rate, don't let it go back to 70%.
• 2 minutes: Increase the speed so that your heart rate is at 70%.
• 2 minutes: Decrease the speed, and decrease the incline back to 0 degrees. Bring your heart rate down to 55%
• 2 minutes: Increase the incline to 3 degrees. Also, increase your speed. Get your heart rate to 80%.
• 2 munites: Decrease the speed and decrease the incline back to 0 degrees. Bring your heart rate back to 70%.
• 5 minute cool down - easy intensity level, bring your heart rate back to 50%.

The treadmill workout as written here is a total of 30 minutes. This includes a warm up and cool down. If you can't do thirty minutes yet, that's fine. You will be able to build up to that over time. For now, just do what you can and seek to add time each time you do the workout.

If your conditioning is currently pretty good, and you want to go longer, just repeat a few more of the intervals that I describe here before you go into your cool down.

Also, be sure to do a thorough warm up before starting this program. An easy way to get warmed up is to walk for 5 minutes, and then do some light stretching.